[jdom-interest] NoSuch*Exceptions in JDOM

[Patrick Dowler]

On Fri, 23 Jun 2000, you wrote:
> I suggest a new method following the java.util.Properties pattern
> meets the underlying need and solves your problem. Namely:
> 
>   public Element getChild(String aString, Object defaultValue)
> 
> It does not throw a NoSuchElementException and can return
> a null, "" or 0 as appropriate. -GreatOne--

This seems to go totally against what most people are trying to do. If
you call getChild, you really want to know if the child was there or not. 
Having a default value returned doesn't seem too useful for anyone...
correct me if I'm wrong on that :-)

For something simple like Properties, it makes sense. For a child
element, you could be talking about a whole structure ( the "body" 
child of an "html" Element, for example). 

Did this ever get resolved? What is the current standing of returning
null vs. throwing NoSuchElementException from getChild? I got the
feeling last week that we have not reached any consensus on this...

I'm still for a null return value.
--

Patrick Dowler
Canadian Astronomy Data Centre